Fuck Guilty Pleasures: Lisa D'Amato Could Be America's Next Top Rap Chick
[Editor's Note: Fuck Guilty Pleasures celebrates the over-produced, commercial, artless, lowbrow music that we believe is genuinely worthwhile. Like, among the best music ever.]
Lisa D'Amato won the America's Next Top Model all-star competition last week. Not bad! But we knew her back when she was busting out rhymes in L.A. clubs. Don't even think about calling her a lightweight: Girl's got jams for days.
D'Amato had already been seen on America's Next Top Model -- the fifth cycle -- when she started making sassy electro rap. Back then even we thought she was kind of obnoxious on the show, but her musical moxie won us over.
What can we say? We can appreciate a lady who's in your face, expressive, and unapologetic about it. Especially when it comes to hip-hop, an audacious, even bitchy persona is particularly desirable. White girl rappers often have to overcompensate for the stigma of being, well, a white girl rapper, by acting badass.
What's cool about Lisa D is that we know she's the real deal; she wasn't afraid to be a badass on her first ANTM run. She was never afraid to look ugly-sexy, or be silly or in anyone's face. One time she got so trashed she bonded with a bush -- yes, a piece of shrubbery she seemed to think was a person! She didn't win that season, and we later learned more about her abusive childhood when she was on Celebrity Rehab; her partying was masking some serious problems from the past, and she talked with Tyra Banks about it on the all-star show.
Her music? Early stuff like "My Name Is Lisa," "Bikini" and "Can't Touch It" -- which featured some production help from Cisco Adler -- impressed us when we saw her perform it live a couple of years ago. She often uses scantily clad backup dancers on stage, which we endorse. But her sophmore release, Flippin' The Bird -- which came out in September -- was sexy and silly, on par with Peaches' "Teaches of Peaches" and Kreayshawn's stuff.
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